Wen’s 280 Build

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Wen

Wen

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Spent 6 hours yesterday cleaning the 280 and taking down a 30gal IM that housed some LPS & pair bullet hole clowns. I had to prep the refuge for the bullet holes, so the Red Ball of Death was booted to the skimmer section of the sump. Will post a pic, looks happy in the new digs.

Then I noticed the largest and prettiest of my coris wrasses. It was not acting normally and there were faint damaged areas to its middle section. Luckly, I could catch it easily and quickly assembled a hospital 7gal. It appears to have an injured spine...not bite marks or as I had thought power head damage. IDK what happened to it, bad nose dive into the sand? I am bumbed. It is so fat and pretty, but can't seems to locate food, flops over, occasionally does circles.

Now thinking that the 30gal should be set up for qt tank for another couple coris wrasses.
 
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Are you sure that it’s micro bubbles? Can you catch some in a container and do they go away? Or do they settle? Can you see they coming out of the return in the DT? If they are micro bubbles, I doubt it’s coming from the tank plumbing there with salt creep.
Yes and extremely tiny. They do dissipate at the surface eventually. I can’t see them coming out of return, but they are the size of a pin head. The are not in refugium or sump. 2FA9B045-2A26-433C-9A36-A2ECC8B3E5F0.jpeg
 

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Wen

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Picked up 2 WAVs on Black Friday sale and really like them so far. Plug and play is way easier for me then trying to program that gyre!

Now my mind is trying to churn out an orchestrated flow masterpiece that moves out debris while being conscious of fish energy expenditure and sand storms.

I’m also thinking about the pros and cons of less or more flow in the middle of the night.

I have 2 mp40s (low back wall right), 1 gyre (middle vertical overflow wall left corner), wavebox (overflow wall upper left) and 2 WAVs (overflow wall upper right and opposite side upper right).
 

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Yes and extremely tiny. They do dissipate at the surface eventually. I can’t see them coming out of return, but they are the size of a pin head. The are not in refugium or sump. 2FA9B045-2A26-433C-9A36-A2ECC8B3E5F0.jpeg
I’m still skeptical that they are micro bubbles coming from the sump, especially if there are no micro bubbles visible in the sump and you can’t see them coming out of the return into the DT. Sorry I can’t help more...
 
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Besides the respiratory effects of a red tide, life is good in sunny south FL.
The 280 is finally settling: hair algae battle is over, dinos disappeared, DT microbubble mystery solved, coraline is happening, flow satisfaction, gsp attaching to glass, corals are growing and fish doing great.
F80E0784-E240-491F-8F49-4603D4DDB449.jpeg
8ECD9AE6-0891-411D-9E3D-65F009DD03DA.jpeg 771D1ADC-38C6-4CE3-BA21-CF8EE7F2283A.jpeg
 
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Finally finished caulking the stand/canopy, now if you squint it looks like actual coral stone, hahaha. 8505718E-79CB-4DA5-942F-582E7DE3625D.jpeg
Experimenting with ways to attach frags to live rock. 86818BF7-70F7-4ACC-A119-94578A491C96.jpeg
With renewed confidence made a few investments. 370109EE-F3B7-41F1-9F52-9029ED1E1C72.jpeg 148F47A6-B593-4C87-BBF5-BFB192E93FA6.jpeg 7A4190F1-D2EE-4873-B125-74594C353907.jpeg
 
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Yikes! Just returned from a New Year’s Eve party and the tank is surging. Fusion says all running normally, but all cor20 lights flashing, FMM are flashing, wxm flashing, pm1, ald!!!

By the surging sounds, something is very off, but sump water level is the same.
 
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Idk why yet, but the whole apex system was non responsive, running on fallback mode.

I learned the terrible surging was because I had the basic fallback “ON” for all Cor pumps...which meant they were running at 100% when they normally run at 65%. I have corrected that now to Fallback 65.

The tricky thing was that I could not control the Cors through Fusion...on New years Eve at 11:30pm, haha. Thankfully, Brett S came to the rescue and guided me through what to do.
I unplugged every cord, aquabus, modules, power, everything. Then I started plugging in one at a time, while monitoring the fusion module screen. By 2am, both return cors were working as originally programmed and the surging stopped, so I called it, with just the return pumps running.

Today, I pulled all aquabus cables off everything and began rebuilding slowly while checking fusion as I went. So far it’s all working except “display 1”, which I don’t know what that is yet. Haha.

Well the tank has received no soda ash or calcium for 18 hours. So tomorrow I’ll address parameters.

I did find that the apex disconnected 7x yesterday, it’s hardwired. (I did run a different Ethernet cable to a different port last night. ). I’m thinking that and the last hours of dreaded 2020 Was the reason for the freak out.

Very thankful it’s running great at the moment.
 
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Update on Apex troubles: turns out the display was/may have been the faulty module that went rouge.
When plugged in (last) during the trouble shooting, I didn’t realize that it was stuck on one screen and its power would randomly turn off on it.
Tried a few things through Neptune support and it’s cooked, sending it for repairs.

Now something is up with the ORP probe! It’s been headed up since New Years Eve. ECBF3931-D1C2-4A0E-AEF5-DE29C8BB9E2F.png
 
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The saying, “Happy wife, Happy life.” applies here, haha.

Lots of encrusting and coral growth, all pearlies now have burrows along the front of the tank for viewing, I keep catching out giant red emeralds-1 more to go, Philipp from KP Aquatics helped identified another hitch hiker crab Pilumnus floridanus that needs to go, cyano is improving in the sump...

On the to do list is reducing my phosphates slightly, they are stable at .1 (nitrates are around 14, which is ok in my mind). I

in another effort to reduce the tiny floating DT debris, installing this “water polisher” today. When I vac sand, there is this very very fine sand, which I believe is the problem. With vacuuming and polisher, eventually will have clear water.

2585943E-00CE-43E6-98AA-BB20AE6D5610.jpeg
I need to work on photography skills.
image.jpg
 
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Pulled this rock out of the fuge and dropped into DT to keep fish busy during wkly wc.
look how pretty it is!
6F6D58D0-11DB-4890-9404-770A881A8557.jpeg

Phosphates are climbing, so big wc, no more pellets until gfo canister online.
Corals don’t seem to mind except 1 which was gone in 1 day...could have been something else, idk.
The clams in the sump don’t seem to like the high phos either. image.jpg
And pics of sump/fuge chamber dwellers, one w/orange filter.
3187E88D-FF2F-4596-805A-4D74A2EF5737.jpeg E11185EE-6550-4871-8CC0-C45A620108C1.jpeg
 
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The GFO reactor now online at a trickle, gfo is not tumbling, which ik it should, but I kinda want to start slowly as to not upset the sps.
Thoughts?
 

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The GFO reactor now online at a trickle, gfo is not tumbling, which ik it should, but I kinda want to start slowly as to not upset the sps.
Thoughts?
IMO it would probably be fine, but erring on the side of caution is always wise in this hobby. Better to go too slow than too fast in most cases.
 
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